fabfilter isn't lacking for rave reviews anywhere on the net but some things like their saturn distortion can't be praised enough...it's simple when you need it to be or you can dig in and spend hours and hours getting into everything it has to offer...this is the essence of a bit of "gear" that's indispensable

the multiband layout allows you to zero in on any important frequency ranges and apply anything from barely detectable tube girth to full on saturation...the kicker is that there are a number of different types of saturation ranging from several styles of tape to amp simulations to full on digital mayhem...

so, if you wanted to, you could keep things relatively clean below 200, slice up your mids into 5 bands...each with it's own overdrive processing and have an additional band for your high end...all crossovers being completely adjustable, like a multiband compressor (which this could double as in the right circumstances)

a typical application, in my case would be to take an overdriven guitar sound, clean up the low end, address any issues with the midrange and get the high end under control

so what does this boil down to? you're basically getting 3 plugins in one...an amazingly full featured saturator, an amp sim and a multiband compressor (although some may debate this as that's not really it's intended purpose and there aren't any compression controls other than a "dynamics" knob) all rolled into one package with modulation to boot


I could easily find a use for this on every mix...from acoustic folk to technical death metal...think about how many "creative sound" plugins are that versatile

that is what makes this plugin a great value...even at 170 some odd dollars